Exploring the history of Pargana Chail , Kara Manikpur and the Doaba region in Allahabad, UP , India ----------------------Never throughout history has a man who lived a life of ease left a name worth remembering.

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Muhiuddinpur - Pargana Chail

When I Walked down the road leading towards Muhiuddinpur

I reached the other side of the village near the mosque

The Secondary School in the village

Jb Tameez Amad with Fuzail Sb

It gives a view of natural rustic look

Near the fields

The mosque built in 17th Century ( Aurangzeb Era)

Another view of the mosque

Inside the mosque

Janab Fuzail Ahmad , Tameez Ahmad etc

Across the pond

In the middle Abrar Ahmad , 93 years Grand Old Man with Farooq Ahmad right

Muhiuddinpur Muhiuddinpur Bhareta as it is known in the revenue records,
is a village lying exactly between the Grand Trunk Road and the Delhi-Calcutta
railway line at about 11.7 KMS away on the west from the district headquarters
Allahabad.

The frenzy of recent state rulers to sport with the
dimensions of the old districts has played havoc with the identification and
relativity of a lot of villages as in the case of Muhiuddinpur. Today Mohiuddinpur falls under the Kaurihar block, Tehsil
–Sadar- District Allahabad while it had always been part of Pargana &
Tehsil Chail, District Allahabad.

The neighbouring villages are Shaikhpur, Mandar, Asrauli,Akbarpur Mirzapur , Sallahpur in the same Kaurihar
block.It
is noteworthy thatMuhiuddinpuris a sister village ofShaikhpurand came into prominence at about the
same time.

Name

As far as I know, there are seven villages having the name Muhiuddinpur in Tehsil Chail listed as follows:-

Muhiuddinpur - Near NewadaMohiuddin Amrain - Near Chail

Mohiuddinpur Taluka Saiyid Sara – Near Ratgaha

Mohiuddinpur Chandrasen – Near Seondha

Mohiuddinpur Ghaus Uparhar – Near Ujhini & Kurai

Mohiuddinpur Ghaus Kachhar – Near Ujhini & Kurai - Unpopulated

Mohiuddinpur Bhareta - Near Shaikhpur

You will notice there is only one village with the name “Muhiuddinpur” only while the others have suffixes attached to them in order to distinguish them from others. Ours is Muhiuddinpur Bhareta.

Let’s discuss the toponymy of this village.

The name Muhiuddinpur is indeed an old one. According to a legend, the Mughal Emperor Muhiuddin Muhammad Aurang’zeb encamped here during one of his retreat from Allahabad to Delhi. Most probably it was the one when he came chasing here his brother Shuja and finally defeated him at Khajua. When Aurangzeb encamped here on the right side of GT road, the unpopulated area came into light and it was renamed as Muhi-uddin-pur after the Emperor’s name. The camp of Aurangzed did fructified in another way as the Mughal Army laid foundation of a small mosque which exists to this date and serves as the identification point to the armed forces even today.

The area where Aurangzed stopped for a halt was owned by the Chaudharis (Hashmi) family of Bamhrauli. Aurangzed asked for a meeting with the head of the Bamrauli family at the same time. After the death of Aurangzeb and a series of impotent rulers went by, the region came under the sway of the Shia rulers of Awadh.

Why it is called Bhareta ?

During the last quarter of 18th Century, around 1770-1790, this village was given by the Chaudharis to the Washer men community who served the family in their best of capacity. The washer men are alternatively known as Bhareta (Dhobi) even today and thus this Muhiuddinpur came to be known as Muhiuddinpur Bhareta (The Muhiuddinpur of Dhobis). Today it is even difficult for us to visualize the awe and grandeur of the life of Chaudharis as they had given an entire village to their Dhobis. Such was their generosity and it more tells about their wealth and great zamindari status.

The UP
Gazetteer too confirms it location with the name of Bhareta.

Title
: Uttar Pradesh District Gazetteers: Allahabad Gazetteer of
India

The history of the population of Zamindars in the village is relatively a recent one although the village contains in itself some very historical families.

Muhiuddinpur came into prominence when it was taken up as an abode by a migrant family of Hashmis of Bamrauli.

As mentioned in one of my earlier posts that during the first half the 18th Century a dispute arose between two branches of Hashmi family namely the Makhdoomzadgan and the Chaudharis. When it was not settled through legal battle, one of the makhdoomzada, Badi-uz-Zama’n left Bamhrauli in resentment and indignation and took a historical leap to land in Ibrahimpur Bamhrauli, a village that is now known as Shaikhpur. He had two sons, the eldest one stayed in Shaikhpur while the younger one Muharram Ali was employed in the British Army at Burma. During one of his sabbatical , he was not satisfied with the “take care” of his wife and children at Shaikhpur , he again took a giant step and built another house a few furlong away in Muhiuddinpur and thus Shaikhpur family was divided into two villages and thereafter both the branches are living there quite peacefully and amicably.

Families

Since its inception , there have been five different families living in the village:

1. Family of Chaudhari Kazim Ali of Bamhrauli – No one from this family lives in the village now.

2. Family of Muharram Ali Sahib- branch of Shaikhpur, the dominant family in the village .

3. Family of Syed Sirajul Hasan of Bisauna – His son migrated to Pak. No lineal in the village.

4. Family of Syed Kazim Husain Kajjan of Bisauna – this branch is still present here.

5. Family of Aijaz Ahmad Jafri of Mahgaon – this family is still there

6. Family of Shaikh Ubaidullah Sahib of Bamhrauli – this family is very much here.

Now I would describe about the origins of each family in brief :-

Chaudhari Kazim Ali & Family

The foremost family that came and settled here was the family of Chaudhari Kazim Ali of Bamhrauli. He was married in Mahgaon. His son was Chaudhari Baqar Ali and then his son was Abdul Rafeeq whose sons are in Kanpur but without any connection with their paternal dwelling.

Muharram Ali & Family

This is the major as well as the dominant family of the village.As mentioned earlier around 1860-1880, Muharram Ali of Shaikhpur shifted to Muhiuddinpur. This family is of Bamhrauli and Bamhrauli family in turn is descended from Makhdoom Shaikh Ismail Quraishi Al Hashmi of Multan who came to and settled in Bamhrauli 700 years ago. Several Bamhrauli off-shoots are found in PeepalGaon, Neem Sarai, Kurai etc villages.

I am producing below a concise genealogical table of this Muhiuddinpur branch of Hashmi family, followed by the names of the descendents of the persons mentioned in the table. This way you will be able to relate and revive your connections with Muhiuddinpur.

Rest of the names went without any issues and you could say that this is all Muhiddinpur is made up of. This is the major clan of Muhiuddinpur and virtually Muhiuddinpur is known for this family only.

Syed Sirajul Hasan Rizwi of Bisauna & Family

Syed Sirajul Hasan of Bisauna got married to the daughter of Chaudhari Kazim Ali and thus he came and settled in Muhiuddinpur. One of his sons Achchhan migrated to Pak without any connection with the village so far.

Syed Kazim Husain Rizwi & Family

Syed Kazim Husain of Bisauna was married into the family of the same Chaudhari family and his sons were Mohammad Hafeez and Sifat Husain and from Sifat Husian came Aal-i-Ahmad Marhoom, Irshad Ahmad, Iqbal Ahmad & brothers while Mohammad Hafeez had Nafees, Ateeq, Laeeq and Anees Ahmad etc. This is a Rizwi family from Bisauna.

Aijaz Ahmad Jafri & Family

Aijaz Ahmad Jafri s/o Qadeer Ahmad Jafri of Mahgaon got married into the family of Kazim Husain Rizwi and later he migrated to his in-laws in Muhiuddinpur. His sons Iltifat Ahmad, Aasar Ahmad, Dr.Intezar etc are quite well known. This is a Jafri family from Mahgaon.

Shaikh Ubaidullaah & Family

One Shaikh Ubaidullah s/o Abdul Azeez who again belonged to the Hashmi family of Bamhrauli – came and settled here around 100 -105 years ago. Though he had some paternal share in the village but when his father had contracted a second marriage in Bamhrauli, finding himself a bit uncared for , he went to live with his paternal aunts at Husainpur and then after purchasing some land in Muhiuddinpur and merging with his paternal share in the village, he built a house and settled here. Shaikh Ubaidullah had two sons. Shafi'ullah and Nabi'ullah. Shafi'ullah stayed in India wihle Nabi Ullah migrated to Pakistan.

If I have to pick three eminent and well known during the last 100 years from Muhiuddinpur , I would select the following three figures who have made a mark with their life , hard work and character. I have tried to compress as much detail as I could in a paragraph for each of the three.

1-The foremost figure would be Maulana Haji Hafiz Qari Hakeem Shafi’ullaah Sahib Marhoom who was the most prominent resident of Muhiuddinpur during the past century. Hakeem Shafiullah Sahib was the son of Shaikh Ubaidullah of Bamhrauli.His father was the person who migrated and settled in Muhiuddinpur about 100-105 years ago .Hakeem Shafiullah was primarily a qualified Aalim from Mazahir-Uloom, Saharanpur (Deoband) but he was more known as Hakeem throughout his life. His Sanad shows him to have graduated from the Darsgaah in 1932 while his family tells his year of birth as 1916. To me it is rather improbable for a 16 year old to become an Aalim. The fact is that Hakeem Sahib was born around 1909 or 1910 and qualified as an Aalim at an age of 22 years. After returning home, he took admission in the Unani Medical College of Allahabad in 1940 and completed his BIMS in 1944, started his clinic in Sulem Sarai and later in Talab Tiwari which ran throughout his life. Apart form that he served the Unani College as an teacher also and retired from the service in 1978.He was known to be humble, down to earth, simple , god-fearing, soft-spoken and in-toto a nice specimen of human being with all the requisite qualities that an Aalim should be adorned of. The gentleman passed away in 2009 and left a void yet to be felt and filled. He is succeeded by his two sons. Dr. Muti'ullah Suhail and M. Wasi'ullah Fuzail.

Jamal Zafar ----Mr. Zafar Alam -- Iqbal Zafar

Mr. Zafar Alam with his sons in his Shoe Unit

One of the leading men that Muhiuddinpur produced is Mr. Zafar Alam, an exemplary entrepreneur and a self-made man. His story may enlighten and guide us about how to venture out in different horizons and create a niche for yourself in life. Mr. Zafar Alam is the son of Anwar-ul-Haq Marhoom who expired in 1943 when Zafar was a child. Against all the odds, his mother continued his education till he did his matriculation in 1950 and again he had to wait for three years to complete his intermediate in 1953 and later on finishing with MA. It was this year when he landed into Kanpur as a feeble, handsome youngman. Hid tried his luck in numerous trades until he found the trade of Tallow Manufacturing that gave him a sound standing to look out for further avenues. Within a span of less than 10 years he was able to hire one of the biggest tanneries in Kanpur for leather manufacturing in 1969. Though he could not sail through this tide yet he gained immense experience for his future dreams. Then he jumped into the manufacturing of Heavy-Duty Looms and was one of the five biggest licensed manufacturers in the country. Thereafter he headed towards Bombay to work with a refinery , came back to Kanpur after few years and finally in 1979 he established his own leather upper and Shoe manufacturing Unit in Kanpur as “Zafar Alam International”. Today it is one of the most trusted and reliant names in the leather world of Kanpur. He has a world wide export of leather products through out Europe ,Australia , Middle East and US. The world famous Clark Shoes has a tie-up with him that he produces in Kanpur. In the story of Mr.Zafar Alam , we have a lot of rich experiences and lessons to learn , if we pay attention to it. If you would like to have some more , do pay him a visit in Kanpur. He is capably succeeded by his two sons, Iqbal Zafar and Jamal Zafar who have taken the reins from their father to take the business to the next level.

Another exemplary figure of Muhiuddinpur is Dr. Mohammad Mutie’ullaah Suhail. He did his Matriculation in 1962,got married in 1964 while he was in his teens but thanks to his indomitable spirit that he did not relent and pursued his educational career with full fervour and did his FMBS in 1969 despite having children and raising a family. Still he did not stop , he did his MA (Urdu) while he was running his own clinic in Mahgaon. After that he enrolled for MA (Arabic) as a regular student and got through with flying colours. For us, the youth of the present generation, it leaves a lot to ponder and emulate. Dr. Suhail was married for 6 years had a few children yet he was a regular student of Allahabad University. From 1970 -80 he ran his medical practice in Manauri. Then again Allaah swt gave him a leap and he landed in Saudi Arabia and served in the Inidan Embassy as a senior interpreter for 28 years, superannuating in 2008. Do you think it is over now. No there is one more feather to his cap, that he is a Haafiz-i-Quraan ,a privilege which he got through in 1957. Excellent indeed! a very balanced and nice career he had ! Today he is associated with a charitable institution as a visiting Doctor in Kareli. His career and pursuits apart, he is a thorough gentleman and practicing Muslim and that has more weight in my eyes than any other thing… We need more of his kind always. He has a younger brother Mohammad Wasi'ullah Fuzail who is again a nice human being and more importantly a praciticing Muslim inclined towards Tazkia-i-Nafs and is associated with the leading Ulama of Allahabad city.

Zamindari

As for Zamindari , we should keep in mind that the ancestors of Shaikhpur & Muhiuddinpur left Bamhrauli at about 150-170 years ago and they were the last ones to leave Bamhrauli .The present Chaudharis of Bamhrauli , Shaikhpur & Mohiuddinpur family have had common ancestors and shared landed properties in villages around Bamhrauli and Shaikhpur for a fairly long period. Despite their large zamindari , they lost almost all due to the following reasons :-

1. Participation in 1857 uprising.

2. Internal Strife and excessive litigation

3. Repeated divisions on account of people leaving village and asking for share in other villages.

4. Forsaking their large share entirely without any remuneration around Bamhrauli while leaving for Shaikhpur.

5. Lastly the zamindari abolition broke them compeletly.

Hence when this family landed in Shaikhpur and settled in Muhiuddinpur they still had few shares in villages Asrauli, Muhiuddinpur, Ibrahimpur , Hatwa , Talab Tiwari , Bamrauli Airport but they had nothing consolidated and with the passage of time they disposed these shares too in tits and bits in order to sustain and retain their social ground, getting reduced to a status of a ordinary peasent or Kashtkar. It is no doubt that they once ruled the roost and were a part of large zamindar family at Bamhrauli.

Population

Muhiuddinpur is a village with a very small population. In 1952 it had total 536 persons in total whereas in 2001 the population was 1533 persons .Today it has only 14 populated houses of Muslim Gentry living in Muhiuddinpur whereas the total no of households of all categories are 265.

Change is
good !

Since my maternal grandmother is from Shaikhpur I have got a lot
of first hand observations about Muhiuddinpur from her and amongst them was a
fact that Muhiuddinpur was a very simple village with just a few houses to be
counted on tips of fingers. Today when I visited Muhiuddinpur, the world has
changed , it now seems to be a semi-urban locality and will be better in the
days to come. With the bounty of Allaah swt, the residents have not only
retained their houses but converted them into good looking dwelling places.
Today’s Muhiuddinpur is not what it used to be thirty years ago and this is a
good sign. May Allaah make and purify our inner selves as good too as our outer
ones ! Ameen . Since it is located very close to the GT road coupled with the
rapid urbanization in the city going on , the day is not far when it would be
one of most coveted and choicest of places in Pargana Chail. I am not wrong to
say this since some of the residents of far fetched villages have purchased
lands in Muhiuddinpur and others are contemplating to have a house here………..
Contrary to the villages I have visited so far , I could very proudly say that
this is the first Aabad , ba-raunaq , Khush Aayind village I have seen……….

There are two mosques in the village , the older one a bit off the
main village , builit in the 17th Century and the other one inside
the village built in 1936 by the residents. Both are undergoing renovation and
restructuring…….that is good too……….or two !

Marriages

As mentioned earlier Muhiuddinpur is majorly a Hashmi village with roots in Bamhrauli. This family has always been considered to be an Aali Nasab clan of Allahabad. Their initial marital connections were with very few and selected villages in Chail for example , Kakra Pura, Ujhihni, Jhoonsi, Mindara,Naraur, Bisauna and that’s all. Later on they struck alliances with all the other leading families of Chail as in Ratgaha, Pawan,Husainpur,Mahgaon, Bade Gaon, Kath Gaon, etc etc for instance………. This family as well as other migrant families of Muhiuddinpur have always maintained their standards of marriages high and intact to this day.

Migration

Muhiuddinpur is a heaven for migrants,
people have come from other villages to Muhiuddinpur but only one family
is known to have shifted from Muhiuddinpur to Basedhi. A family of Mahmood
Ahmad Sahib is residing in Basedhi to look after some property they inherited
from their maternals.

At last

I was warmly welcomed and greatly helped
by Dr. Suhail Sahib , Fuzail Sb and others and for that I am grateful to them
always.

When I visited Muhiuddinpur last week,
the wheat crop was ready to be reaped and thrashed , then it would be used to
fill our belly. I thought wheat was lucky that it was useful and could be
utilized and served thousands, lakhs and crores while I am a good for nothing
guy . What is the use of ME ( Myself ) ?? Am I really useful, helpful ,
love-ful to others ? I am still entangled in the question......looking for an answer ?

Second thought as always was related to our connection with
Allaah swt , Rasool Salla Allahu Alaihi WasallamQur'aan and Hadeeth. Whenever we were
held high , we were always associated and connected with our Lord. Whenever we
left Allaah swt behind , the world also threw us down...........

All those who are remembered today with
love & respect were not men of wealth and affluence always, rather they
were the men with knowledge and character both whom we adore and remember with
tears in our eyes, yearning to find them again but alas , their shadows too
could not be seen..........According to Meer Taqi Meer

Har koi is jahaa’n mei’n das roz,

Apni naubat bajaae jaata hai ! ! !

Have we ever thought that a day will
come when the writer and the reader of this article will no more be in this
world then WHY ? We will all be buried somewhere under........

2 comments:

Maryam Razi, D/o Mr Mohd Razi
said...

ASAK,Very good work done by you in compiling this detailed information about Pargana Chail and Mohiuddin pur Bhareta. My fathers family belongs to Mohiuddinpur. My father (Mohd Razi)is the youngest son of M fasih and I would appreciate if you add his name in the list....also The eldest son of M fasih was Mohd Wasi sb, whose name also is not mentioned. If you need any information about my family I would be glad to share.

I am extremely impressed and amazed with this beautiful work of tracing the roots of all the villages of Pargana Chail being done by you and making available to us.One can only imagine how much effort and enthusism it requires.I came to know about you from my brother in-law and maternal cousin Mr.Shabih Zahid (Behka).Hatsoff to you!Please keep up this great work!